


Mystery Science Shipping 3000

by Paycheckgurl



Category: Mystery Science Theater 3000
Genre: Crack, Dating, F/M, First Dates, Forced Dating, Humor, M/M, Meta, Multi, Multiship, Parody, Post-Season/Series 11, Pranks and Practical Jokes, Shipping, canon typical anarchy, canon typical self awareness, dating show, kinga doesnt understand fan culture, or lack thereof, ships herein not taken all that seriously, tom and crow sabotage joels love life
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-06-15
Updated: 2017-09-26
Packaged: 2018-11-14 13:22:09
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 9
Words: 9,407
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11208918
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Paycheckgurl/pseuds/Paycheckgurl
Summary: Kinga decides to take another crack at igniting a beloved MST3k ship, with her new mid-season, spin off dating show, Mystery Science Shipping 3000. With "tens" of shippable MST3k main characters, she has some familiar faces rejoin the crew of the SOL to help things along.





	1. Prologue

**Author's Note:**

> It's not meant to be taken the least bit seriously. Don't know how far I'll get with this, but we'll see.

Jonah and the bots stood dead eyed forward on the bridge of the SOL, looking for a cue of any kind. 

“Um why did the Mads call us here again?” asked Crow. His arms were folded in on the table, compounding the somehow bored look on his robotic face.

Jonah simply shrugged, still facing Cambot who was definitely recording the nothing, the only real indication that something was bound to happen. 

“Maybe we should welcome the audience and get up to some shenanigans for the cold opening?” suggested Servo, who sounded more perplexed than anything. 

Jonah shrugged again, figuring he might as well try to push this forward. “Hi everybody I’m Jonah Heston,” he said towards Cambot, or more accurately the audience that would be watching them at home once the next season dropped on Netflix, whom Cambot was recording for. “And Welcome to the Satellite of Love. Kinga asked us to come up to the bridge half an hour ago but she didn’t really tell us why. We’re waiting to see what she has in store for us this time.”

The show opening simulation failed to trigger after another uncomfortable thirty seconds. 

“Um…Kinga? Max? I said ‘Hi I’m Jonah Heston’ and…Kinga you there?” He tapped on the table, trying to get her attention. Finally, the video call lights flashed, indicating Kinga might finally be cluing them in. “Mads are calling,” said Jonah automatically, before almost instantly being interrupted by Servo. 

“No, no no, what is this?!” cried Servo. “The Mads do not call until after the cold opening! We haven’t done the opening sequence yet! We have a carefully crafted routine here and they’re just ignoring it! Why should we put our name on an inferior variation on formula?”

“Yeah especially because it’s the Mad’s formula in the first place,” said Crow, his eyes going sideways. 

Jonah pressed the button, confused as the bots were. 

“Finally,” muttered Kinga, clearly annoyed Servo’s outburst had delayed Jonah’s answer to her (already delayed) call. “Today we are doing something different, and you have Jonah to thank for that.”

“Me? What’d I do?” 

“Our wedding failed to attract the shippers I was hoping for, but did raise our awareness that we have tons of other ships to explore.”

“Do we?” asked Jonah, his tone and raised eyebrows dripping with skepticism.

“Define tons, exactly,” said Servo.

“Yeah wait a minute!” added Crow. “There’s only ever been a like a dozen main people on this show and half of them are either stuck back on Earth or dead!”

“Not to mention directly blood related,” said Servo. “Or you know, us robots.”

“Fine then,” said Kinga, throwing her arms up. “Dozens.”

“Eh, still more like tens,” said Crow. 

“And that’s still being rather generous,” said Servo.

“Shut up and let me do my dramatic reveal already!” demanded Kinga, “Max, give the signal!”

Max, who’d been strangely quiet during all of this, and clearly trying to suppress some kind of emotion (although Jonah couldn’t tell if that emotion was hopefulness or weariness), made an “OK” symbol with his fingers and directed it up towards the tube. That was when two jumpsuit clad figures emerged from the door sequence behind Jonah and the bots. One in red and other in blue. 

“Joel!” exclaimed Servo. 

“Mike!” exclaimed Crow.

Gypsy descended down just in time to let out a loud “AAAHHHH!!!!!! They’re back! They’re back! They’re back!”

“Don’t celebrate just yet,” said Kinga. “They’re only here against their wills to help with my new miniseries, midseason, show pilot idea. Prepare to enter the nightmare fueled world of Mystery Science Shipping 3000!

Jonah got shoved into the show opening before he even had time to process what just happened. His usual scream was punctuated by a similarly distressed yell by Joel and Mike from the bridge.

* * *

Once the opening sequence was over the three hosts took a moment to address each other. 

“It’s really great to finally meet you guys!” Jonah told his two predecessors. “Well, it’d be cool if the circumstances weren’t that we were all kidnapped, but you know. I watched all your old Experiments and the bots talk about you all the time.” 

“Aww thanks,” said Joel in his usual sleepy, deadpan. He was giving Tom a hug with hand and giving Gypsy an affection pat with the other. 

“Nice to meet ya kid,” said Mike, sincerely towards Jonah, and extending his hand for a handshake, after letting go of the friendly hug he was giving Crow. He then turned towards Cambot to exclaim “Not being tied up in a moon basement is nice. Now, does the psycho little redhead want to tell us more about WHY SHE TRAPPED US BACK UP HERE!” 

“Aww,” said Servo. “Mike’s all mad about being kidnapped! Just like old times!” 

“At least she didn’t clonk me on the noggin this time,” he muttered to no one in particular. 

The screen bleeped again, and Jonah answered with a “Boris and Natasha are calling.”

Joel let out a little smile at the reference. 

“Hello Joel Robinson, Mike Nelson, and Jonah Heston,” said Kinga. “And welcome to my new little experiment,” she rubbed her hands together diabolically. “Now this here in Max’s hands here is a little something I like to call the ‘Hat of Romance’ which will determine who’s getting shipped with who”

“What no invention exchange?” interrupted Crow. 

“And yet again she continues to spit on the backbone of our fine institutions!” said Servo indignantly. 

“Ugh. It’s a separate show with more stuff to put in and less run-time. So no. No invention exchanges.”

“But it’s a traditional part of being proud Gizmocrats,” said Jonah, his voice starting to break into a bit of a whine. 

“I haven’t done an invention exchange with someone in so long,” added Joel. “I miss it. And since we’re already up here...”

“Yeah Kinga,” added Crow. “You have everyone together. The least you could do is give the fans what they really want, which is host interaction. You’ve got Joel who likes to make things. Jonah who likes to make things. Mike who’s honestly kind of useless at this…”

“Hey! I made the rain catcher umbrella thing!” said Mike in protest. 

“Yeah and you also made that killer robot who almost destroyed us all and did repairs with ABC gum that took Joel an entire movie to fix right,” said Servo. Mike mumbled something that sounded suspiciously like “Why’d I miss you guys so much again?” 

Kinga, clearly upset her presentation was derailed, just let a scream. “NO!” 

Joel and Jonah looked positively hurt, prompting Mike to stand between the two and give them a friendly pat on the back. 

“Wait if it’s a new show why are we using the theme song? It doesn’t really make sense if it’s explaining a premise that doesn’t apply,” asked Jonah.

“Brand awareness,” she said dismissively. “As I was saying, I Kinga Forrester…” 

“Wait. Sorry, hold on a minute,” interrupted Mike again. “Forrester? As in _Clayton_ Forrester? As in _Pearl_ Forrester?”

“Well yeah Mike who’d you think kidnapped me, Gypsy, Cambot, and Servo in the first place?” said Crow. “Have you not been watching our misadventures on Netflix?” 

“Joel and I spent the last year straight looking for you across space since you went missing,” said Mike. “And it’s not my fault I didn’t get her name before she knocked me out and had her henchman kidnap you all right from under me. But I’m kind of still stuck on the fact Dr. Forrester had kid. That _Pearl_ has a grandkid.” 

“Honestly I’m with Mike on that one,” said Joel. “Dr. Forrester never mentioned it. I thought we were closer than that.”

“And wait. The guy with the hair isn’t Frank’s kid, is he?” asked Mike. 

“TV’s Son of TV’s Frank,” said Max proudly. 

“Max. His name’s Max,” said Kinga. “And enough of that, OK? If you want more of introductions, you can watch the first season of _Mystery Science Theater 3000: The Return_ , also known as season 11, now streaming on Netflix. This is Mystery Science Shipping Theater where we make fangirls’ dreams come true.” 

“I don’t know,” said Crow. “I’m pretty sure fangirls and fanboys both just want see everyone riff on a movie together.” 

Servo nodded his body in agreement. “Yeah if this is really about fan service it seems kind of misguided.” 

“ENOUGH!” shouted Kinga. “Next host or bot who speaks out of line is getting thrown into the vacuum of space!” 

“Oh but Kinga you need us for branding,” said Servo. “You wouldn’t really…” 

Joel intervened, holding his hand over Servo’s mouth. 

“Right,” she said. “As I was saying before I was so rudely interrupted, Max is holding the ‘Hat of Romance’. I’ll pull a name out of it, and another name out of, and those two people will go on a date of their own design. So long as it can be put together with what’s aboard the Satellite of Love. And it will truly be, The Satellite of Love.” 

The Satellite of Love captives all let out a collective groan, but Kinga glared at them to stop. 

“Right then. Today’s victims will be…” 

Jonah raised an eyebrow at what sounded like Max stage whispering, or rather regular whispering that he thought wasn’t as loud as it actually was, “please be me and Kinga. Please be me and Kinga. Please be…” 

Kinga shoved him as she took the first two names. “Jonah. And Joel.” 

Tom and Crow let out a rather large “NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO” that rivaled even Mike and Joel’s earlier scream.


	2. Joel/Jonah

Jonah and Joel stood on the bridge together. 

“So I was thinking,” said Jonah. “Since we’re here anyways and Kinga didn’t let us do this earlier, do you want to start out this ‘date’ with an invention exchange?”

Joel smiled. “Jonah, I think you just read my mind.” 

Jonah seemed positively gleeful. “My invention today is the headphone-less headphone jack. Apple claims to trying to innovate by taking away a standard part of their branding innovative, the white wired earbud headphones, and of course the techie market and Apple devotees are still buying them in hopes of artificially pushing wireless earbuds to prominence. So my question to you is what if we took the premise further? A standalone headphone jack that doesn’t fit headphones, for all the devoted techie hipsters in your life.”

“Nice,” said Joel. “My invention is the unfitness tracker. Instead of telling you how many steps you’ve taken, it tells you many you could have taken in an effort to guilt you into getting healthy.” The watched bleeped to informed him he could have taken 900 steps during the exchange.

The two inventors smiled, looking intently in each other’s eyes. “It’s really nice having another inventor to talk to and share ideas with,” said Jonah. “I mean there’s Kinga, but half of her inventions were stolen from our riffs and I’m pretty sure she just sees the whole Mad Science as a means to an end. When it comes to the inventing side of things there’s no passion for it there.” 

“Well Gizmos are definitely my passion,” said Joel. “So how have things been up here? The Mads treating you okay?” 

Jonah shrugged. “More or less yeah. I mean Max did kind of try to kill me once, but it was mostly an accident. For all of her threats, the bottom line is Kinga needs me and the bots around, and while the movies get pretty awful sometimes, the bots are good company and if I have to be held against my will, it seriously could be a lot worse. So I just try to have fun with it.” 

Joel smiled again. “That’s good to hear. When I was up here it I found it helped a lot to just kind of take it in stride. Take out my frustrations on the movies by riffing them, but otherwise just live life, you know?” 

Jonah smiled back. “Yeah. I get that.” 

“The boys and Gypsy are being good to you then?”

“Definitely. Tom and Crow are really great and I don’t know where we’d be without all of Gypsy’s repairs.”

“Ugh we can’t do this!” said a voice that sounded suspiciously like Crow. “They’re saying nice things about us!” 

Crow and Servo came into view, now each wearing a trench coat, fedora hat, and holding newspapers with eyeholes cut out them. There was a certain lack of logic in Servo’s having two separate eyeholes, but Jonah wasn’t about to comment on it. 

“What do you think you two are doing?” asked Joel, his “you are about to be in so much trouble” voice coming out. 

“We weren’t not spying on your date in hopes sabotaging it with a complicated set of water balloon traps we rigged to the ceiling,” said Servo in a “I’m trying to sound innocent” voice. 

Jonah looked up, realizing there were in fact several water balloons above him and a long string which could be pulled to release the net they were precariously perched upon.

“And why were you trying to sabotage our date, exactly?” asked Joel. He was starting down Crow whose eyes were shifting everywhere.

“No…no reason. None at all.” 

Jonah raised an eyebrow. The bots definitely weren’t above chaos for chaos’ sake, in fact it was probably their modus operandi, but there was also definitely some kind of reasoning to this one, thin though it may be. 

“Uh. Huh. Well then why don’t I put you both in time out until you feel like telling me?” threatened Joel. 

“No!” said Crow. “I refuse. I am too old to go in time out! Too old, I tell you! You can’t do this me! Jonah make him not this to me! Besides it was all Servo’s idea!” 

“Shut up,” hissed Servo. “I only came up with the balloons. Sabotaging the date was your idea.”

“Was not. All I said was ‘holy crap Servo what if they get married. What if Jonah is like our stepdad? What if Mike ends up being our stepdad?’ And then you said ‘oh god you’re right we can’t let that happen! We have to put a stop to this!’ So it’s all Servo’s fault!”

“Enough. Tom. Crow. You’re both grounded. Go to the corner while we get these balloons down.”

“But…but…” managed Servo weakly. 

Joel sighed, as Jonah quickly disappeared down the hallway to return a few moments later with a step ladder.

“Pretty sure we’re about to get yelled at by the Mads for having the least date-like date in the history of television,” quipped Jonah as he stepped onto the ladder. 

“What do your dates not usually end in robot created chaos?”

“Well actually my cynical ratings weddings ended in getting swallowed whole by a giant robot worm with wings…”

“Cynical ratings wedding what was that about?”

“Exactly what it sounds like…this isn’t the first time Kinga’s tried to capitalize on fandom culture for the sake of the show. Probably won’t be the last. I pretty resigned to it at this point.” 

“Hmm. Sounds rough.” 

They worked on carefully lower one balloon at a time down for few moments together, Jonah grabbing them and then carefully handing them off to Joel, before Jonah had an idea. 

“Huh. Joel you know you have really beautiful eyes,” Jonah gave Joel a wink and directed his head towards the corner the bots were doing timeout in.

“Oh Jonah your beard is just so nice and well groomed…” said Joel playing along. 

“Oh you’re just sooo handsooommmeeee,” drawled Jonah in a silly voice.

"Oh now I just want to kiss you silly." 

“MAKEEEE ITTTT STOOOPPP,” yelled Crow from his corner. 

The two inventors laughed. “Alright I think we made our point and gave the Mads some content to work with,” said Joel. 

Mike emerged in the hallway soon after. “Forrester Junior there just called and said times up. Huh what does this string do?”

“Mike, don’t!” called Jonah as the remaining balloons, all filled with green, Nickelodeon style slime, fell on one Mike Nelson.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Jonah's invention is probably more something Kinga would have come with it, but eh it was all I could think of.


	3. Crow/Servo

Mike was still dripping with green goo when they made their way back to the bridge. 

“Nice one, Nelson,” smirked Servo. 

Mike retaliated by moving green across his dome. 

“Jooooeeellll,” whined Servo “Mike’s being mean to me!”

Joel ignored him. 

“Ugh. Nelson go wash up,” said Kinga from the video chat. “If I draw your name I’ll save it for the next round.”

“Thank you,” he called as he ran for the showers. 

“Now this next pairing will be…Crow T Robot and…Tom Servo.”

“Pass,” said Crow. 

“What he said,” said Servo.

“No one is exempt from this and don’t you think otherwise,” she said sternly.

“It’s not that,” said Crow. “Servo and I already got married once on the old show. How do we even top that level of over indulgent romantic farce?”

“I don’t know come up with something.”

“Fine, we’ll try…something,” said Servo “Jonah can we borrow some things from your fablab?”

“Um…I’d feel more comfortable if you told me what you needed then I got them ready for you…”

“I’m taking that to mean we can raid whatever we want,” said Crow. “Neat. Alright Servo get the chainsaw.” 

“Oh I don’t know,” said Joel automatically. 

“We’re not going to destroy anything…well not a first,” said Crow. “I was thinking ice sculptures!” 

“Only if Jonah or I supervise.” 

“Not Mike?” asked Servo. 

Joel made an uneasy look. “Well only because he’s showering off...”

“You’re worried good ole ‘Mike Nelson Destroyer of Worlds’ is going to break something aren’t you?” said Crow. 

“Little bit,” admitted Joel.

* * *

When the bots were done decorating the bridge of the SOL had been transformed. Sparkling ice sculptures, a white table cloth clad bot sized table, and romantic candlelight. The human captives (including one freshly washed up Mike) had cleared away, all silently agreeing now that arts and crafts were safely completed it was best to just leave them to whatever shenanigans they’d cooked up, and watch from the safe distance of the other rooms.

Servo came our in a frilly dress and wig, while Crow had donned a sports coat. Crow plopped the red, fake velvet rose off the center of piece of the table. 

“In my hand,” said Crow seriously. “Is the final rose. I had a lot of options over the course of this journey, like Servo, or the clone of Servo. Or the other clone of Servo. But I’ve decided to give this, finial Rose, to Servo.”

“Oh this is the happiest day of my life!” squeaked Servo. 

“And now it’s time to say yes to the dress!” 

Crow did a Southern accent, while Servo ran and got a bot sized changing divider. 

“We have here an elegant lace, mermaid dress for only $5000 dollars, a real steal that can fit your low budget.”

Servo, now wearing the described dress emerged, doing a whiney voice, “ugh but I told you mermaid doesn’t flatter my figure and the color is two shades too off white to be truly off white!”

“So you will not being saying ‘yes to the dress?’”

“Nay! I say nay to this horrible excuse for a dress!”

“Well then in that case Servo, I guess you are a Bridezilla!” 

Crow switched voices again, this time doing something approximating a valley girl. “Tom Servo can’t find a dress he’s satisfied with, and I, your overly self-aware narrator will riff on him. Because there is seriously a pre-wedding reality show where the narrator just riffs on it for you, what’s with that?”

“Ugh everything is wrong!” said Servo in a high pitched girly voice. “These flowers are wrong! These ice sculptures are wrong! Wrong! Wrong! Wrong” 

The ice sculptures fell all over the ground in a spectacular fashion. Tiny ice crystal pieces cascaded across the room, some landing in Servo's dome, collecting together like clumps of a colorless snow cone. 

“Yep those ice sculptures are wrong all right,” said valley girl narrator Crow, “we know because Servo made them himself.” 

“I don’t think he even loves me! Why won’t he love me! If he loved me he’d be here making sure my every nitpicky detail went off without a hitch!” 

“Well we certainly don’t love you Servo. Not with that attitude.”

Crow then dropped the voice. Stepping back into the fiancé role, he came in to the picture. 

“Well see here’s the thing Servo, you’re really intense and my parents think that I should date someone new. They’re putting us on…Parental Control,” 

Gypsy descended down of the ceiling wearing stern teacher glasses, a bun wig, and a librarian like polka dot dress on a hanger, when the counsel began beeping with a call from the Mads.

“Ugh what, we’re mid-sketch," complained Crow. “Gypsy hasn’t even gotten to her speaking part yet.” 

Gypsy nodded in indigent agreement. “I was going to be the Good Girl his parents chose for him which he then inexplicably decides isn’t good enough and continues to date the one he started with that takes him on far inferior dates.” 

“Parental Control? Seriously that was a dated reference even like ten years ago. What are you going to pull out next, Jersey Shore? My Super Sweet Sixteen?”

“Well, said Servo "maybe we’d be more current on what’s cool and happening in pop culture if you hadn’t kidnapped us in the first place.”

Kinga rolled her eyes. “Please, it's been less than a year, I let you have TV, and referencing junk is literally what you were built for.” 

“Well,” said Crow. “It’d certainly be nice if there were more widely known dating shows out there. We had to dip into wedding shows which is a separate genre in of itself.”

“Yeah Kinga,” said Servo, looking as straight through to Kinga as he could “Nobody likes dating shows.” 

Kinga looked like she was fuming for a few seconds, her ears beginning to get as red as her hair, before she gave poor Max a shove as an outlet for anger. “Next. Couple.” she murmured.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Well, I didn't come anywhere near being as funny as the wedding in Racket Girls (which is to be expected), but I tried ¯\\_(ツ)_/¯


	4. Mike/Joel

It was pretty clear Kinga didn’t actually look at the names she drew for round three. Instead she stared down at Servo, and plainly announced with a smirk, “Joel Robinson and Mike Nelson.” 

“Nice going Servo,” said Crow. “She’s only doing this to punish you!”

“Oh like you’re blameless,” said Servo. 

“Aww are you two fighting?” asked Kinga. “Don’t care. You had your turn. You’ll have it again. Right now it’s ‘another face in a red jumpsuit’ and ‘just a regular joe’. You see what I did there?”

“Uh huh. Real genius,” said Mike. 

“Now the last two dates were lacking a certain something. That real genuine, down home, overworked to feel underworked first date feel. So, I’ll continue to allow you to choose your setting, but only if you can incorporate the package I’m about to send up.”

Gypsy appeared on que with Kinga’s delivery, a picnic basket. 

“So we get to choose our date, but only if we use a picnic basket,” said Mike. “So basically you’re telling us we have to have a picnic?”

“Well,” said Joel. “I can probably modify the basket to be,”

“No!” said Kinga. “I mean yes, what Mike said. What...it has to be a picnic okay! Gah!” 

Joel smiled. “Alright then, I guess we’re having a picnic.”

* * *

The two former hosts had spread out the picnic basket contents on the ground. The basket contained a traditional checker board picnic blanket, and various food items which they were in the process of arranging. 

“A cheese plate,” said Mike. “She’s mocking my rich Wisconsin heritage. Only I can mock my rich Wisconsin heritage.” 

Joel chuckled. “Let’s see we got a bottle opener, Hamdingers…ew.”

The case of Hamdingers was pretty small, a normal sized tin. That didn’t stop Mike from quipping “any escape pods hidden in there?” and Joel making a show of “checking” the small container, which he then chucked away to the other end of the blanket because it smelled funny and had probably expired sometime around the time Jonah was born. Also because Hamdingers were the worst thing in existence.

They continued to go through the basket’s contents which included finger sandwiches that looked fancy but actually had such a bland taste that the blandness almost had to be intentional, two tart berry pie slices which had been smashed by the basket’s other contents (rendering them simply tart berry mush) and a couple of cold ones, which were apparently what the bottle opener was for. They were in fact, actually still cold (they must have been the last thing the Mads packed), but Mike looked at his beer a bit despairingly.

“PBR. Damn millennials,” he muttered. 

“It’s okay,” said Joel. “Mine’s actually root beer. But hey, either way we have a picnic date. Let’s celebrate.” 

The two men clicked their drinks together, and sat back in the blanket.

“So,” said Mike “You’re not sick of me yet are you? We did spend a god awful amount of time together getting up here this last year.”

“Nope. You get my esoteric references to obscure, cheesy B movies and Midwestern cultural iconography. Not many other people do.”

Mike laughed. “Yeah the amount of times I’ve had to explain who Joe Don Baker is to people is people is getting kind of annoying. So I’ll give you that.” 

“Hey Mike,” said Joel taking a sip of his not beer, edging just a bit closer to Mike. “I don’t think I’ve ever really thanked you enough for looking after the bots all these years. Just, thanks, you know.”

“Joel, seriously don’t even worry about it,” said Mike. “They kept me sane. I’m pretty sure their method of keeping me sane was just to make what the Mads were doing look sane by comparison…” 

Before Mike could finish his thought Servo and Crow appeared wearing red-brown spheres and antenna hats. 

“We’re ants,” said Crow.

“I can see that,” said Joel. “And why are you ants exactly?”

“Because ants ruin picnics!” said Crow. 

“Uh huh,” said Joel. “And didn’t we talk about not sabotaging my dates?”

“Nope,” said Crow. “You talked to Crow and I’m an ant!”

“Yes you are,” said Mike.

“Alright,” said Joel. “Enough of that, Mister. Tom Servo come here too I think the antenna is blocking your vision.”

Joel removed the antenna hat off of Servo, and sat the small bot his lap, while Mike had Crow sit down between them. 

“Mike you’re not allowed to date Joel,” said Servo. 

“Okay you’re going to have to walk me through on the ‘why’ here. Why can’t I date Joel exactly?”

“You just…you can’t,” said Crow. “Jonah already does this annoying thing where he tries to act all paternal and that’s Joel’s thing, not his. He’s more like the teenaged cousin who’s babysitting. Technically probably in charge, but he has to watch himself if he screws up, which he does all the time because he’s lame. And Mike can’t be our dad because he’s already like our older brother who does cool stuff like bring on adventures through space and time and doesn’t yell at us when we use bad words.”

“Pretty sure I have to tell you to stay in line all the time, Crow,” said Mike. “Hell, I’m doing it right now.” 

“Yeah but…but…it’s different and there’s been way too many different things up here recently and I just want everything to stay the same,” whined Crow. 

“Would it really be that different though?” asked Mike “You already live with me most of the time when we’re back on Earth and we spend pretty much all the holidays with Joel together. Assuming we manage to spring Jonah eventually, he’s probably going to be around all the time too. Also…you do remember the part where we’re literally only having this picnic because Jim Henson’s Mad Babies are making us, right?”

“Still don’t like it,” mumbled Servo. “Are we in trouble?”

“This was way less destructive than the slime balloons,” said Joel. “So I’ll give you a pass.”

The bots settled in with the picnic food and the four enjoyed food for a second. Suddenly Crow shouted “Uggggghhh I’m going to be sick!” loudly. 

Crow did you try the Hamdingers?” asked Joel. 

“I’m an ant, I nibble on everything.”

The rest of the date was spent comforting Crow over his sick stomach, and putting in the necessary effort to keep him from using Servo as a vomit bowl. 

Joel couldn’t help but observe “Hey Crow, you know you were more effective at disrupting this date once you stopped trying to.”

Crow’s expression somehow looked sicker.


	5. Growler/Waverly

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> One day, two chapters! This is pure crack (or as much as anything can be considered crack in this universe) and I'm sorry, but it does set up who might potentially show up in future installments.

The crew reassembled back on the bridge for the next round of marching orders once Crow’s stomach settled . 

“Next couple will be myself,” said Kinga drawing a name “…and M…”

As Kinga’s mouth moved to form the word “Max”, Max started to look a little bit like a puppy dog whose person just returned from a long trip to the store with hamburger trimmings to share. A look for pure adoration and loving anticipation to show that adoration in the most enthusiastic way possible. 

“MMM…aaa…nope. Uhhuh not that one,”

Max slowly deflated, quivering his lip and looking to the ground. 

“Oh but I thought you said no one was exempt earlier,” said Joel. It was hard to tell from his deadpan whether he was taking pity on the clearly lovelorn Max or participating in the grand Satellite of Love tradition of lovingly trolling the hell out of the Mads. 

“Yeah but I make the rules and the rules say the rules don’t apply to me,” said Kinga. “So there.”  
The exchange prompted Mike to nod his head to the side and raise his eyebrows in a gesture that could only be described as “subtly mocking.”

Kinga shook the hat mix up the names, pulling again, “Crow and Joel,” she said. 

“Ehhhh,” said Joel uneasily. 

“Ewww no way! Gross!” said Crow. 

“Um Kinga,” said Tom. “Crow and I have a long history goofing around with the whole marriage thing, but this one is kind of weird,” 

“Yeah, Kinga,” said Jonah carefully. “I don’t think our viewers actually want to see that one. It’s kind of verging on incest.”

“For the sake of my remaining bits of sanity I know I don’t want to see that one,” said Mike. 

“Redrawing, redrawing,” she muttered, shaking the hat. “Myself again and…Max, why the hell is your dad in here? He’s dead.”

“You said to put all the characters! Hosts, bots, Mads, repeat guest stars and reoccurring visitors!”

“People I can send on dates, Max! I can’t send dead people on dates! Who the hell is in here anyways?”

“Hmm let’s see. Joel, Mike, and Jonah. Cambot, Gypsy, Tom Servo, and Crow…”

“How is Cambot going to date someone when he needs to film this?” interrupted Kinga. 

“I don’t know, first person,” said Max. “Anyways, Magic Voice,” 

“Hey, what happened to Magic Voice anyways?” asked Joel. 

The bots and Mike shared an uneasy look. 

“The short version is we took a blood oath to never discuss that again,” said Mike. 

“And have to kill Mike if he says any more than that,” said Crow matter-of-factly. 

“Ooookay,” said Jonah, instinctively a few steps away from them. 

“The nanities,” said Max continuing his list. 

“Didn’t make it back to Earth after the original Satellite crashed,” said Gypsy. 

“Dr Erhardt, my dad, your dad, your grandmother, your grandmother’s clone Synthia, Bobo, Brain Guy, you, me, Ardy, Torgo,”

“Ahhhh!!!!” screamed the bots, Mike, and Joel, in response to Torgo’s name as Max continued the list unabated. 

“Mr. B Natural, Peanut, Matt Claude Van Damm …”

“Who?’ asked Jonah. 

“Who what? You didn’t hear anything just now. Didn’t happen,” said Kinga.

Doug McClure, Waverly, and Growler.” 

Kinga threw the hat at him. “Take out the dearly departed and unreachable, and for now we’ll just…go with the last two I guess. Waverly and Growler or whatever.”

This time Joel asked “Who?”

Mike indicated he had no idea, whereas Gypsy let out an annoyed sigh, Crow looked like he wanted to murder someone (and that someone was probably Jonah who he was staring down), and Tom let out a rather exasperated “didn’t we kill Waverly already?”

“I’ll go get them,” said Jonah.

Jonah emerged with a pile of what once a little orange robot and was now a talking pile of spare parts.

“Well this going to be pun,” said Waverly, his broken voice box changing in pitch with each word. 

“Well that’s…something,” said Mike. 

The larger green bot followed, his piano already set up in the corner. 

“Mike, Joel, meet M Waverly and Growler,” said Jonah. 

“Hey so I’m probably going to regret asking this,” said Mike. “But where do these guys even sleep? I noticed you’ve got like three beds.” 

“Waverly’s been a broken pile of parts in Jonah’s fablab for months that he’s been lying to us about not trying to fix, and Growler sleeps in the closet,” said Tom.

“The closet?” asked Joel incredulously.

“We told him he was playing Harry Potter,” said Crow. “He likes it!”

“It’s ok man,” said Growler. “I’m programed to be super chill and like take any potential abuses by these guys as gentle ribbing. I’m like fun loving and stuff.”

“That’s a tad bit disturbing,” said Joel. “He’s like the Stepford Rowlf." 

“It was the only the way to spare him from well…this,” said Jonah indicating Waverly. 

“I’m just now starting to see the consequences of programing too much tribalism and jealousy into robots,” said Joel. 

“Just now starting to?” asked Mike. 

Joel shrugged. “I mean teasing aside they like you at least…” 

“So Waverly you want to be serenaded by good vibes and stuff?” asked Growler. 

Several piano solos later, Growler made an announcement to the crew. “So guys it’s been real cool and all, but my new boyfriend Waverly and I are going to run away to Hollywood together.”

The two bots jumped out of the airlock into space as the broken box of bot bits known as Waverly waved his one operable arm goodbye. The box sat atop Growler’s piano, which Growler was playing a rendition of one of the lounge songs from I Accuse my Parents on as they floated away. 

“Aww,” said Crow. “They’re going to float aimlessly in the vacuum of space together until burning to nothing upon entry to Earth’s atmosphere! That’s almost a better death than making Waverly a piñata again!” 

Jonah banged his head on the counsel, and Mike put a friendly hand on his back. 

“Don’t worry kid,” said Mike. “I know exactly how you feel.”


	6. Mike/Synthia

Kinga quickly fished the next names out. "Mike and…Grandma Pearl."

“Sure I’ll shoot the shit with Pearl for an hour. Sounds fun. If we’re doing this anyways we might as well catch up.”

Kinga looked strangely self-conscious. “Well she hasn’t exactly returned my calls the last ah, month or so…so next best thing. Mike, meet Synthia. My grandmother’s clone.”

Synthia attempted to hug Kinga. As per usual, her strangely robotic hug failed, and Kinga just looked annoyed, and perhaps a bit uncomfortable. 

“Save it. Save it for Nelson! Arrgh!” 

Mike was then sucked in the tube down to the moon. 

He screamed on the way down.

* * *

Mike took note of the tubing system. Ok. Escape attempt. He could use the tube to transport himself…actually he had no idea where the tubing went aside from the SOL and Kinga’s moon base thing. He should have probably asked Jonah about that. Damn. Ok, so the tubing was out. But he could still try and run for it and figure it out later. Step one: run for it. Step two: get back to Earth…somehow. Step three: send help up for Jonah, Joel, and the bots…someway. Ok, Mike, he thought to himself. Great plan. Time to just run for it. He started just running for it. Kinga stood in front of him with her hands on her hips. She simply glared at him as he backed away slowly back to his date. Maybe she was her grandmother's granddaughter after all. 

“Hello Michael. Mike. Mike Nelson. Captive. Date. Lover. Person. Initiating hug.”

Synthia’s hugs were more robotic than the actual robots. They were uncomfortable and weird and well, so was Synthia. Mike had to admit so was the woman she cloned from, but in an entirely different way. 

“Yeah. Yeah okay. Hug it out. Hug it out,” said Mike as he tried to maneuver himself out of her grip. 

Kinga had disappeared from their sight view, with only the Skelton Crew hanging around to monitor them. 

“Much better,” said Synthia suddenly much more relaxed and almost human looking for a second. 

“Um what,” said Mike. 

“You saw nothing, notta thing, Micheal Nelson Mike Nelson,” said Synthia. 

Mike simply just raised his eyebrows. 

“Look I’m based off Pearl’s genetic structure,” she said in a half whisper, dropping the act. “As a result I don’t want to be around Kinga any more than Pearl does. If she hates me I don’t have to be around her too much. If Pearl hates me, I don’t have to confront my own mortality and the fact that she can end my existence immediately upon deciding I’ve outlived my useful…usefulness Ness.”

She started sounding a bit more robotic again and stiff again towards the end of her sentence. 

“Isn’t Cambot still filming this?” 

“Why I don’t know what you mean Mikey. Mike. Nelson, Mike.” 

She gave him another unsettling hug before the Kinga Chrome bubbled over and Kinga had to throw up the “technical difficulties” card.

* * *

“Where’s the containment tube?!” demanded Kinga from Moon 14. 

“I don’t know!” said Max. “It’s like the segment’s containment disappeared completely!”

“Liquid doesn’t just disappear completely,” said Kinga. 

“Well evaporation…”

She hit his chest. 

“Okay yeah, I deserve that,” said Max. 

Just out of their sight view, Synthia’s arms flailed around a broken liquid film containment unit. 

“Impressive,” said Mike. 

“I can’t lead you on, I’m dating Bonehead #1,” said Synthia. 

He heard Kinga yell in frustration again, as he was sucked back up the tube in the satellite.


	7. Jonah/Mike

Once Mike made it back up the SOL, he made the mistake of mentally thinking “well, at least I probably won’t be next again.”

Kinga called his name. He was next again. He really needed to stop doing that.

“And…” said Kinga as she fished out the next name, “Jonah.”

 “Um Kinga,” said Max. “No one ships it.”

 “What?”

 “Well…so far anyways, there’s been no fan engagement for that one. A couple of people ship Joel and Jonah, and Mike and Joel is by far the most popular ship on both Ao3 and what can be dug up on our subpar tags for the show on Fanfiction.net but um…there are literally no Mike and Jonah stories.”

“Wait,” said Jonah. “Seriously? Why?”

“I don’t know; I don’t write fanfic! (…well not about anybody but me and Kinga)” The last part was said in a half whisper.

“Any special requests for what we do this round?” asked Mike, almost pointedly ignoring Max’s confession

“Eh,” said Kinga. “If no one really ships it than I don’t care, it’s filler. I don’t know…a movie?”

“You mean that thing you always make me do anyway?” asked Jonah.

“Well, a movie without actually watching the movie. I’ll send you up movie snacks and you can do all the going to the movie stuff you’d do down on Earth. Just up here in the theater, and without an actual movie playing. Movies rights aren’t in the budget for this.”

“Okay, now you’re literally giving the fans _Mystery Science Theater_ without a movie being talked over,” said Crow. “You can still totally give in and just make this a reunion show, and let Mike and Joel go when you’re done.”

“Or let all of us go,” said Tom. “You know if you’re feeling it.”

“Nice try. But no. Send them the movie snacks.”

* * *

Gypsy delivered up a basket of slightly stale, store brand popcorn, and a flat soda with two bendy straws. Mike and Jonah sat in the front row of the SOL theater together, enjoying their mediocre treats.

“It feels wrong being in here without the lights being turned all the way down,” said Jonah, grabbing a fistful of popcorn.

“Yeah,” said Mike, grabbing his own fistful, “it’s weird just being back here honestly. Well that and that I’m technically sitting in Tom’s spot.”

“Oh. Yeah. We can move over a couple if it’ll make it less weird.”

“Nah, it’s your seat now. Also I was kidnapped so I could go on dating show where I go on fake dates with the people who kidnapped me or the only other guys in the universe who have been kidnapped in space and tortured with bad movies. There is literally nothing that can make that less weird.”

“Yeah…” said Jonah.

The two tried striking up a few different conversation starters, before ultimately settling on nerding out over music.

“You seriously found a Stratocaster on Ebay that cheap?!” asked Jonah.

“Yeah, and I could almost afford it after paying off most of the junk the bots stole my credit card for too. You don’t play do you?”

“Nah, I only really focused on percussion, but I love the sound of…” he trailed off, realizing Tom and Crow were sitting in the back.

“Are you guys still trying to sabotage our dates?” asked Jonah.

“Actually we decided we ship it,” said Crow.

 “What?” said Mike.

“With this paring no one gets with Joel,” said Tom. “And also we don’t have to worry about scaring off either of your potential dates if we decide they’re not good enough for you.”

“You know in a weird way that’s actually kind of sweet,” said Jonah.

Mike sighed “It is until these two are chasing away someone really hot, like oh I don’t know, Jamie from two doors over, because their answer to captcha on a word association test isn’t ‘racist’.” He glared at them.

“Captchas are discriminatory against our kind,” said Tom defiantly.

 “I know that, but it doesn’t mean that’s the first thing that’s going to come to someone’s mind when they hear the word!”

 “The answer Jamie gave was inadequate.”

“The answer Jamie gave was ‘wait you mean that internet identity check thing?’”

“Anyways, we ship you two,” said Crow. “Worst case scenario is if Jonah dates you and we all escape at some point, we just have to put up with living with him again and your place being slightly more crowded.”

“No one marries Joel, no one tries to play Stepdad, we can keep tabs on two of our favorite idiots. It’s a win/win,” said Servo. “Now go, keep dating and talking about stuff. You’re in a theater make out like desperate teenagers or something.”

“Or we could address the elephant in the room that I’m old enough to be his dad,” said Mike.

“Age is but a number,” argued Tom.

 “Or that this entire time we’ve addressed everyone’s sexuality exactly zero times,” said Jonah.

“Mike’s bi, he talked about his ex-boyfriends and girlfriends a couple of time back during his episodes. And Jonah I know you like girls but you’ve never actually said you don’t like boys too…” said Servo.

“The rules of shipping. Everyone is bi or pan unless directly stated otherwise,” said Crow.

“What if we just aren’t attracted to each other?” asked Jonah.

“That didn’t stop Kinga from trying to marry you,” said Tom.

“Okay fine that’s technically true,” said Jonah. “But also like a really bad example. But sorry guys, we can’t get together as a result of this. Kinga already said.”

“No she didn’t!” exclaimed Crow. “When the hell did she say that?”

“She called it ‘filler’. Nothing significant can happen during a filler episode.”

Mike laughed. “Darn. I guess if we have to play by the rules of shipping, we have to play by the rules of narrative television too. Literally nothing of too important can happen here Nothing at all.”

“Well,” said Tom. “Not unless we stick a stinger on it somewhere.”

* * *

 

_A Stinger_

 “Send the demo reel down to Earth,” said Kinga to Max darkly. “It’s time we take this to the next level.”


	8. Joel/Mike/Jonah

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Note: increased rating because I'm paranoid. This chapter is a bit more PG-13 than the ones before it for some possibly suggestive "dialogue" (possibly and "dialogue" being the operative words here). Once again any discussion of ships is meant to be how the characters might react in universe, not my actual opinions on any one ship.

As the crew made their way to the bridge table for their next assignments, Max appeared on the side of vidscreen holding a comically large scroll of white paper.

"What is that?" demanded Kinga.

"You asked me to send some clips down to Netflix. They had some notes."

"You call that 'some'", she said dramatically. "And wasn't the point of partnering with Netflix that they weren't going to interfere with production?"

"Um you said it yourself, it's technically a different show, so they feel they can have a say here."

Kinga forcibly grabbed the paper from his hands.

"'This is such a waste of a reunion special,'" she read aloud annoyed, she added a muttered, "Why does everyone keep saying that?," before continuing. "'This is the most G rated shipping focused show we've ever been pitched. Why no fem slash?'"

"Because there's like maybe four female characters, three of whom are genetically related, and one who's a robot?" Suggested Joel.

Mike shrugged. "There's always Jan in the Pan and Flavia if they can figure out where they're at..."

Kinga glared, and continued. "'More romantic tension, more drama, why are there no character x reader segments...'"

"Uh what's..." asked Mike.

"First person thing where the viewer would ship themselves with one of us," said Jonah. "I'm not really sure how that would work on the show and not in written format though. It's going to be awkward for poor Cambot anyways."

Cambot seemed to chirp in agreement.

"I'll save that one for next time..." said Kinga as Jonah gulped.

"'Wait no OT3...,'" she read.

"And OT3 is?"

"A play on OTP which stands for One True Pairing. Kind of a 'one ship to rule them all' type thing. OT3 is when the pairing is a threesome," said Jonah.

Mike sighed. "In literally any other setting that would actually be kind of hot."

"Max!" Kinga demanded. "What's the most popular OT3 ship on AO3."

Max looked down awkwardly as if trying to avoid giving the answer. "Jonah, you...and me?"

She looked at him angrily. "As I keep telling you this," she said indicating herself and Max, "is not happening. Next most popular."

"Your grandmother, Bobo, and Brain Guy has like two..."

Kinga blanched a bit at the mental image, Mike made a gagging noise, while Tom simply hummed "hmmm...I could see it,"

The others stared at him.

"What? They live with and spend all their time together. They even joked about it last season!"

"No," said Kinga plainly. "Besides we have to work with what we have. And what we have is...oh. Wow. That's obvious. Why hasn’t anyone done any fic for that yet?"

"Uh...Kinga?" asked Max concerned.

"Those three. The next date is going to Joel, Mike, and Jonah."

"UGH!" shouted Crow "When we said we shipped Mike and Jonah this so isn't what I had in mind. It defeats the whole point if Joel's back in this! And then we'd be stuck with all three of them trying to Dad us!"

Kinga ignored him. "And since most of these notes seem to be along the lines of 'make it hotter' I've got an idea that will make this spicy hot. So hot little cartoon puffs of smoke are going to come out of your red, hot faces!"

A few minutes later the three hosts stood standing with hastily written scripts in their hands.

"Yeah this isn't spicy hot," said Joel. "It's not even mild 'white American order at an appropriated TexMex restaurant' hot."

"Just stick to script," said Kinga irritably. Terry the Bonehead looked like he was about to approach her with something before backing away slowly upon catching her glare.

"Remind me never to complain about the quality level of Earth vs Soup again," muttered Joel.

Mike read the stage directions awkwardly. " _Mike is framed against a window, smoking a still.._ .there's no windows on this part of the bridge and I don't have anything to smoke, but sure... _Mike sees Jonah_...There. There I see Jonah. _There you are kid_.  _Mike leers at Jonah_. Leer."

" _Oh Mike I've waited so long to become a man. Clearly you're the one that can make it happen_...You made me a virgin? Seriously? Just because I'm the youngest doesn't mean I've never..."

Kinga's glared intensified.

"Anyways why should the concept of manhood be tied to sexual prowess? Frankly that's,"

Kinga's glare became absolutely murderous, prompting Jonah continued reading. " _...but see the thing is, there's always been a bit more to my dream.'_ "

" _Joel emerges smoking a pipe_ ," read Joel. He mimed smoking a pipe, but much like Mike his heart clearly wasn't in the skit despite his embellishments. " _Trust me. I'm a bit more._ " The stage directions did not call for an eyebrow waggle but he in one for good measure. Mike buried his face in his hands in response, trying to hide is laugh at the ridiculous face Joel made as he did that.

" _Oh Joel. Oh Mike,_ " read Jonah. " _I'm suddenly hungry...for a sandwich_."

Jonah turned directly to Cambot to address Kinga. "The dialogue in the movies is getting to you, isn't? Do you want me to suggest something than can help or...?"

"This is still a family show," deadpanned Joel.

"Hmm well this was fun but I think I'll take my painful, slow death in the dark recesses of space now," said Mike.

Kinga crossed her arms angrily. "Keep going. And I'm not going to be lectured about broadcast standards when one of us here- _Mike Nelson_ -came up with Tubular Boobular Joy."

" _Let's get out these jumpsuits,_ " said Mike, "I'd like to protest on account the Mike character is out of character. He should be a gentle lover that takes his time,"

"I'd also like to know my motivations," said Jonah. "Why was I dreaming of this moment so badly? Is it a hero worship thing? Is this the culmination of years of sexual tension? A slow build, complicated of interactions leading to this moment? Pure lust?"

"Your motivation is shutting up so I don't come up there and punch you," she said. "Just skip a forward a few pages."

"' _Oh. Oh. Oh_ ,'" read Joel in a voice that was somehow even more deadpan than his usual speaking voice. " _You rock me out of this world. Which we are out of this world. Oh. Oh_." Somewhere in the skipped pages was probably a stage direction that he was supposed to be intimately holding someone. The three were standing noticeably apart, fully clothed in jumpsuits with visible undershirts underneath. 

" _I am a man thanks to you_ ," read Jonah. " _Let me put on my glasses so can see how hunky you are..._ I never took them off but sure. Also I have no idea which one of you that was supposed to be directed at."

" _Ah ah there_ ," read Mike. "' _Mm so good. You were so good_ '...you know I'd throw out the old 'still a better love story than _Twilight_ ' line, but that would be an insult to _Twilight_."

Jonah shrugged. "As awful as this is I've read worse; at least I don't think one of the pages we missed contained the line 'he instantly knew he was pregnant.'"

"Wait there's one more line of dialogue on this page. ' _Oh so sexy_ '", read Joel. "There I read the last of the dialogue. Anything else?"

"Just get ready for the host x reader segments," said Kinga as she sighed in defeat.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This bit is inspired by Rifftrax MST3K Reunion show press conference where someone asked what it was like when all three hosts were together in a room for the first time. Mike turns his answer into a slash fic. The first few lines of dialogue in the play about the window were borrowed from him.
> 
> Also no seriously...why hasn't anyone done slash for the three hosts together yet? Is it too obvious?


	9. Hosts x Reader

It was Mike who bravely asked... "Um how does this work exactly?"

Kinga sighed.

"Just talk to Cambot like you would someone you were seducing."

Mike pulled a face.

"You're not actually seducing Cambot, you're seducing the viewer Cambot's recording for."

Then Joel pulled a face.

"Do our fans really want to see this? I really can't reconcile it with the nice folks that send us letters of encouragement and their kids’ fan art,"

Jonah completed the face pulling trifecta.

"I hate that I know the fans definitely want to see this."

Kinga smirked. "Just get on with it, Nelson. Jonah next, then Joel."

"Hey there...uh sexy? I guess.” began Mike. “Do you want a piece of uh...um pure Grade A Wisconsin...um cheese? Yeah I'm no good at this.”

Kinga groaned in frustration. “Here. I'll narrate. You do what I narrate, got it?”

 _Mike waggles his eyesbrows. His blue eyes stare into your very soul. Very SLOWLY,_ hint _,_ HINT, Nelson, _he begins to loosen his jumpsuit and take the button down. He stares at..._

“What is that face?” said Kinga breaking her narration voice. “Why are you scrunching your face up like you’re in pain?”

“You have to ask?” said Mike.

“Ugh. Fine Heston get up here."

She began narrating for Jonah.

_Jonah’s jumpsuit fits his large frame perfectly accentuating…certain aspects.”_

For a hot second Jonah was getting into it with a sexy half grin, before pausing to look straight into Cambot and ask “so are we sure there wasn't more to this whole cynical ratings marriage thing, Kinga?”

She rolled her eyes. “It's not my fault fans love objectifying the heck out of you. I'm just exploring my options to capitalize on it. Now smile for the Cambot, you big ole blob of Eye Candy.

“I still swear you're enjoying this…”

“I mean maybe? But less because I find you attractive and more because I finally got under your skin.”

There was no good that could come out of arguing that any further, so Jonah let Kinga shoulder on.

_Jonah’s large brown eyes are looking at you. Right at you. He's give you a cheeky wink. You are the most important person in the world. Jonah is cuddly but also a force of sheer se..._

The feed cut out, and then back in.

_Jonah leans on the console forward. He gives you a come hither look..._

Jonah signaled “come here” with his large pointer and middle fingers. The feed cut out again.

Kinga began barking orders to Ardy, who in turn claimed there were no Kinga Chrome spills.

“Um ma’am, we think the problem might be with Cambot’s connection directly,” said Bonehead Number 1, stage name Terry.

She growled. “Fine. Just start filming Joel and we’ll go from there.”

_Joel stretches his long, fit legs. His jumpsuit makes him appear petite but don't be fooled...he's very broad. He stares at you with his big, droopy blue eyes, a hunger of seduction in them._

The audio cut out. A technical difficulties card was hastily thrown up.

“What was that?” Screeched Kinga.

Aboard the SOL Cambot’s feed shook. The bot was chirping incessantly and he kept cutting to static.

“Well I have to say congrats,” said Joel. “You managed to do something the previous generations of Forresters never managed...you got Cambot to revolt.”

Crow came into view, looking obviously exasperated. “Ew, ew no that was horrible!” He declared. “Look if I can guarantee that I can get you three more stooges for this mess will you never do any of whatever that was again?”

“Who are you going to get? I've been trying Grandma Pearl forever and…”

Crow pressed the button and Pearl’s face appeared on Jetscreen.

“Hi Grandma Pearl! It's me Crow!”

“Oh hi, Art? You doing okay?”

“I'm fine! Do you want to hang out sometime like today, maybe?”

“Of course Art! Anything for Grandma Pearl’s favorite! I’ll bring Bobo and Brain Guy along too, we can play some Yazatee.”

Kinga’s usual firebrand of righteous anger began melting away, instead replaced by what was always directly underneath it: a tryhard trying to impress her grandmother.

“Okay...that...that works then.” She said with a pout, as her voice broke and she slowly limped out of the camera view of Moon 13. “I'll go get the hat of romance or something...”

Just off camera the distinct sound of Kinga whimpering could be heard.


End file.
